I'm posting this here in F&F as well as MS cuz 1) You folks read long diatribes from idiots like me, and 2) I really appreciate your perspectives here.

Rough language warning:_____________________________

What is the/a "Victim's Mentality (VM)?"

I hear it too often for my comfort, so i figure I had better get a real, working identification of the term.

I detect its a "give-up" attitude in the eyes of others....dunno.People give me little slaps for not doing anything with getting my life back on track, but the key word is "BACK."

I don't think I ever had this thing called the VM, at least not until recently maybe? I overcame lengthily, severe and demoralizing sexual abuse for 7 years....I overcame 10 years of psychological and physical home violence to eventually become well-educated, well-traveled and fairly wealthy. I went on to handle a marriage (though very poorly apparently), and raise a family (still in process).

Is THAT what makes me a "victim?"

I never had debt. I always was prepared for anything (survivor paranoia for sure) and nothing ever victimized me again after I left home. I overcame or destroyed all adversarial situations and thrived in the process. Does a Victim thrive? CAN a victim thrive? Dunno!

Now, much of my thriving was dependent upon LOTS of self medication....about $100,000 in powder and probably another $50,000 in drink. But no one ever noticed...least not one person who "knew me when." So it that a VM? I never played the "bum druggie." If I had, they never would have given me the jobs and clients I had.

So i got blind-sided by a sneak-attack of PTSD when the drugs and drink were put to bed forever (by my will alone)....when I disclosed to take this thing on and bring due exposure and resolution to the psychotic crimes laid upon the child. The PTSD got so bad that i was hospitalized twice. I did not leave work until work decided it was time to cut the loony loose. But I was prepared. I had no debt, i had two homes, plenty of money and a great family of my own. VM?

I got sneak-attacked again with a viciously plotted divorce that went nuclear at the very first shot, and leveraged my healing efforts and childhood against me. I lost my children, my wife, and everything else in the blink of an eye...but i fought the case considered "unwinable" by many top lawyers. I had the $120K to cover the lawyer, the court ordered Psychologist and the Guardian Ad Litem. I endured homelessness and zero income because I was prepared by a life of proper planning. I don't see a VM in that.

So the PTSD, DID and BiPolar-Bears were all attacking while I went through one of the worst child custody fights many lawyers had ever seen....with a judge who adhered to the myths and lived by them on the bench. OK....so I see "victimization" there. So how was I supposed to react or not react? Is a mugging-victim not a victim?

Two years of hideous and degrading treatment of and by the courts and opposing lawyers put my "recovery" in the swamp. It won. That is, the adversaries and their attacks won. I was defeated...knocked-down...devastated. Am I allowed that? If I'm allowed that, for how long am I allowed that? I ask, because the defeat in battle, bloody battle, has left me a mear semi-shadow of who I was or what I was.

I'm having a hard time recovering from all that. I don't drink or drug....I don't act-out sexually or cutting as I did as a child. I'm just trying to breathe and keep my head from spinning off my scared shoulders. Have I been sitting in this mud-puddle for too long? Is THAT the VM?

I went to my MD today for my anual physical. He was very impatient and seemed to not even want to give me the 14.2 minutes that Medicare pays for. In the past he has commented "oh...yer Still dealing with that stuff??"

Today he treated me like I was a death-row inmate who killed HIS family. We have an 18-yr relationship (including birthin my babies) when he use to have some respect for me and would carry on a real conversation with me. But those "conversations" have become more and more infantile and clearly condescending.

HE did not SAY "victim's mentality," but he acts consistent with everyone who has: My wife, my sister, my father, friends and acquaintances, people from church who use to treat me like a real human, the wife's lawyer... court psychologist hinted that though he's no danger and yada yada...he "seems to be taking a long time to fix his shit."

I hear the VM and "poor character" diagnoses so often that I'm exasperated. I feel like yelling at people "for FUK SAKE! I earned 5 times in 20 years what you have earned through your whole fkg football-watching, don't give a shit about anyone else life. I hold an advanced fkg degree from a Big fkg East school, I do public policy work where others won't even look cuz its too fkg ugly. I take bullets for society cuz that's what it takes to put perps in jail or keep them away from children when society is too pussy to do what's right! I've given more cars to un-wed single mothers than you can fkg count!"

I'm not shuffling around town in my cut-offs and sandals looking for a fix or another bottle, pissing my pants and sleeping in dumpsters.

So is the VM assigned because I'm taking too long? I tell doctors that I can make it MUCH fuking shorter and make my kids wealthy again all at the same time. To that, they say nothing.

I'm sorry. I don't know how to do this!!!

Is the VM label to make THEM feel good...to put the right paint on the beast? Or is the VM assignment to further shame me?

There are severe and significant emotional. traumatic reasons I won't go and can't shuffle-off to back to the corporate world and suck corporate dick.

If what THEY think is Defeated = VM, then yes....I am a victim. Now what? Will you stop rolling your eyes now Doc, Sis, Dad, Psych, Bro in Christ, Pastor...?

You've walked a hard road and I'm sorry that the people closest to you seem unable to focus on all you've accomplished. That's their weakness, their flaw. And not yours. I think that many people like to pigeon hole others because its easier than trying to understand.

As for victim mentality....I heard on the radio recently that a victim is someone whose choices have been taken away, and that a person stops being a victim when they realize that they have choices.

I guess a person has a victim mentality when they live their life as if they have no choices, when in fact they do. I think it might be easy for some to confuse victim mentality with the need to talk things through. They are not the same. We don't magically get over our shit because someone else says it's time.

It sounds to me as if you have excercised lots of choices in a positive way, so by my definition I would say that you don't have a victim mentality and that your people saying so is about them and not you. Don't wear it. And if you don't want to go back to the corporate world then don't. Live YOUR best life.

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